As if the Bruins weren’t having enough problems, now they might add yet another rookie to their defense corps for their match-up with Pittsburgh Monday night.

The Bruins tonight recalled blueliner Matt Bartkowski on an emergency basis from Providence (AHL). Today in Pittsburgh, Bruins defenseman Adam McQuaid was granted a “maintenance day” and did not practice. He played less than five minutes in Montreal last night. It’s safe to assume that in the cloak-and-dagger world of the NHL, McQuaid suffered some sort of injury (possibly in his fight with Travis Moen).

So with first-year pro Steven Kampfer already in their top six, the Bruins might now replace the rookie McQuaid with Bartkowski, who coincidentally enough is a native of Pittsburgh.

Although he has yet to make his NHL debut, Bartkowski went on the Bruins’ season-opening road trip to Europe. With Providence, he has endured an up-and-down first pro season. For the season, he has posted 12 points (four goals) and a minus-7 rating in 34 games.

I’m torn between trying to find room (roster and cap) for Stuart so we have an extra player for the postseason and cashing in on the luxury of having the extra defenseman to trade in a market that needs them. also, I posted some ramblings elsewhere and wanted to share the ideas with y’all.

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I’d put a forth-liner on each of the lines and the deserving Bergeron on the first line. it means splitting up Bergeron and Recchi, which I would immediately reunite (by switching Marchand for Recchi/Paille, knowing neither new first-liner really belongs for long, as Recchi is showing his age and Paille can’t really be as good as he has looked this past week or two), if the lines seemed bad. Savard needs to be a special teams player instead of a first-liner. also, Bartkowski was recalled for while Stuart is on the regular injured reserve list. a wake-up call is surely needed and Julien’s job is (shouldn’t be) safe through the end of the season, so the easiest change is in the lines. get drastic like this:

Matt, If Kampfer keeps playing well and then Bartkowski really impresses like he did in camp does Stuart go because he could fetch allot ? especially with tons of GMs looking for defensive or Does Mark stay for depth in the playoffs ?

stats give an edge to alexandrov too… obviously there has always been more to chia/claude’s assessment than stats, just wondering what they are rewarding here, camp, continued performance, both? are the stats telling a different story than what is happening on the ice?

is this a promotion due to his camp performance? has he kept that up through the pbruins season so far? how about some of the other guys that have been close in the past few years, like penner and bodnarchuk. quick look at the stats shows penner with the same amount of points and a much better plus/minus, a very julien/chiarelli stat. bodnarchuk has a real bad +/-…